TG-6

[peterak]

Backscatter have a TG-6 review here: Olympus TG-6 Underwater Camera Review - Underwater Photography - Backscatter

This means that f8 and f18 are both achieved with an ND filter and will not increase depth of field as stated in the backscatter review. F8 and f18 only suck up light from your flash only giving a benefit is you are shooting in bright conditions and won't to exclude ambient light.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Really undermines the review's credibility.

 

[Chris Ross]

Though to be fair that info is really buried in the manual - Olympus don't make it obvious, but even the notion of shooting such a tiny sensor at f18 - if it really was f18 the diffraction would mush a lot of detail. The smallest actual aperture is f6.3.

 

[deeper thoughts]

Plz can someone explain this as it relates to underwater shooting
Much appreciated thnx

 

[peterak]

Basically, on the TG's you only want to use the smallest apertures (largest f-numbers) when you want to slow the shutter under very bright conditions or in certain fill flash situations. This is generally not applicable underwater where you almost always want as much light as you can get. (Sometimes you want less light in order to get dark backgrounds, but that is probably outside the scope of the average TG user.)

The take home is that at any given zoom level the TG's will give you three aperture choices; you should stick to the two largest (lowest f-number) apertures.

 

[Chris Ross]

You would only use f8/18 in bright conditions or if you wanted to exclude BG light from your image, for example if the ambient exposure for a wide shot was 1/30 at f2.8 you may get subject movement due to the slow shutter speed. The TG cameras bottom out at 1/30 shutter when flash is activated. To exclude that movement you could go f8, the camera would underexpose by 3 stops and you would set the flash exposure on the external flash so effectively only flash lighting contributes to the exposure. This would correct green/blue tint from ambient light and also because the flash exposure is short it will assisit to freeze motion.

For video in shallow water , f2/2.8 is very bright and the shutter speed could be quite high, it may be preferable to use f8 to slow the shutter speed used in the video to get more natural looking footage.

 

[JackConnick]

Jack,

What's up with this?

View attachment 527449
Jim

Jim we changed the way to buy both housing and camera. If you had it in your cart without purchasing, it may have thrown an error. I just tried it and it looks ok now. Just delete and re add the item.

 

[jlyle]

Jim we changed the way to buy both housing and camera. If you had it in your cart without purchasing, it may have thrown an error. I just tried it and it looks ok now. Just delete and re add the item.

Thanks, Jack. Camera/housing are on their way.

 

[deeper thoughts]

Thanks, Jack. Camera/housing are on their way.

Backscatter said about another 2 weeks 4 my order

 

[medic5]

I usually only complete a few dives on each vacation but snorkel extensively. I just purchased the TG6 but I am not photography enabled. I will not use this for diving but would like to get the most out of it when snorkeling. From my reading multiple reviews the auto function is the worst choice when snorkeling. I understand that the camera will allow for 2 custom settings to be stored in the camera. Presuming I am snorkeling in crystal clear water can anybody help me out with what the basic settings are that I should use? Thanks and be kind.

 

[Tippytoes12]

I usually only complete a few dives on each vacation but snorkel extensively. I just purchased the TG6 but I am not photography enabled. I will not use this for diving but would like to get the most out of it when snorkeling. From my reading multiple reviews the auto function is the worst choice when snorkeling. I understand that the camera will allow for 2 custom settings to be stored in the camera. Presuming I am snorkeling in crystal clear water can anybody help me out with what the basic settings are that I should use? Thanks and be kind.

I have a TG5 and if I am shooting in very shallow water I use the non underwater mode, otherwise a bit too much red is put in , even with auto WB.